Hello Reader,

There's a movie I keep coming back to called About Time. The premise is simple and strange: the men in one family can travel back within their own lives and revisit days they've already lived.

Most people remember it as a romance, and it is one. But the heart of the film is a father and a son. The dad's advice to Tim is to live each ordinary day twice. The first pass comes with all the tension and worry that keeps us from noticing anything. The second pass is for noticing. By the end, Tim goes further than his father ever did. He stops travelling altogether and simply lives each day as if he'd come back to it on purpose.

The scene that stays with me comes near the end, when Tim visits his dying father one last time. The way I remember it, one of them says, "Let's save some time." Now, memory does its own kind of time travel, so I may have bent the words. But the line, remembered or invented, won't leave me alone.

Because we all think we know what "save time" means. Shave the minutes. Batch the errands, automate the inbox, take the shortcut. Saving as hoarding, the way you'd save money.

Save has another meaning, though. It's what you do for a swimmer going under. And that's the meaning I hear in that scene. A father and son with almost nothing left on the clock aren't trying to conserve time. They're trying to rescue some. To pull a little of it out of the current and help it become something worth keeping.

Most of our hours don't need to be shorter. They need to be rescued. An afternoon on autopilot is an afternoon drowning quietly, and no amount of efficiency will pull it out. Attention will. Presence will. Deciding what the hour is for will.

So this week, save some time. Not the hoarding kind. Pick one hour that usually slips under and go in after it.

The Final Flicker

You can save time the way you save money, or the way you save a life. Only one of those is worth the hour.

See you later,
Mike

P.S. That second kind of saving is what Productiveness is about, start to finish. The book is out now. ​

Thanks for reading. Your time is valuable, and I don’t take it for granted. In a world pulling us in all directions, thanks for choosing The Lantern.